Eric Woolery to Dominate Mail in Auditor-Controller Election
with 1.5 Million Pieces

ORANGE COUNTY, CA – Orange Treasurer Eric Woolery announced today that he has locked up the major county election mail slates in his campaign for Auditor-Controller, which will carry his message to voters on 1.5 million pieces of mail. Based on prior election results for Auditor-Controller and current voter turnout models, nearly 350,000 voters are expected to cast their ballots in this election for Auditor-Controller. Securing the slates will ensure that Woolery’s message will be heard by every high propensity voter several times before the June 3 election.

“Becoming Auditor-Controller is my goal, and I aim to win. I have been planning my campaign for many months when I strategically began securing slates and endorsements while implementing other key tactics,” Woolery said. “Using my technical skills honed over 20 years as a CPA in both the public and private sectors leaves me ready to competently lead our county. Currently, the Auditor-Controller’s office is missing opportunities to ensure proactive and efficient uses of taxpayer dollars.”

Several key endorsers have also jumped on board the campaign, giving him additional momentum as the filing deadline nears. Over the past several days, five major Orange County leaders have endorsed Woolery for the Auditor-Controller position:

Senate Republican Leader Bob Huff

Assemblywoman Diane Harkey

Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait

Anaheim Mayor Pro Tem Kris Murray

La Habra Councilman Tim Shaw

These distinguished local officials join a lengthy bipartisan list of elected officials providing their full support to Woolery, as he continues to hone his strategic plan for victory in this countywide race:

This came over the wire this morning from Orange Treasurer Eric Woolery‘s campaign for Auditor-Controller. Of the three people who have pulled papers for Auditor-Controller so far, Woolery is the only one without a foreclosure, a short-sale, or a bankruptcy:

Orange Treasurer Eric Woolery Enters Auditor‑Controller’s Race

(ORANGE COUNTY, CA) – Orange Treasurer Eric Woolery has announced his candidacy for Orange County Auditor‑Controller. He enters the race as the clear frontrunner, with $50,000 cash on hand and a lengthy list of bipartisan endorsements from across Orange County.

“Serving as Auditor‑Controller would be an incredible opportunity to use my years of experience in both business and government finance to give back to the county I’ve called home since high school,” Woolery said. “I am honored and humbled by the number of people who are endorsing my candidacy for Orange County Auditor‑Controller.”

In addition to his current elected office of Orange Treasurer, Woolery’s public service began with his election to the Orange County Board of Education and continued on the Orange Audit Committee and as Deputy Director of Administration in the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office. He spent the majority of his career in the private sector, having served as the owner of a multi-location private accounting firm, a corporate CFO, a corporate controller, and an accountant.

“With his experience in both the public and private sectors, Eric is one of Orange County’s foremost financial leaders,” said Patricia C. Bates, Vice Chair of the Orange County Board of Supervisors. “I am proud to endorse Eric Woolery for Auditor‑Controller because we need his expertise leading the Orange County Auditor‑Controller’s office.”

Supervisor Bates leads a long list of Orange County leaders who have endorsed Woolery for Auditor‑Controller, including:

Supervisor Patricia C. Bates

Supervisor William G. Steiner (Ret.)

Assemblyman Donald P. Wagner

Laguna Niguel Mayor Linda Lindholm

Tustin Mayor Al Murray

Tustin Mayor Jerry Amante (Ret.)

Orange Mayor Pro Tem Mark Murphy

Tustin Mayor Pro Tem Chuck Puckett

Aliso Viejo Councilman Mike Munzing

Fullerton Councilwoman Jennifer Fitzgerald

Lake Forest Councilman Scott Voigts

Mission Viejo Councilman Frank Ury

Orange Councilman Fred Whitaker

San Clemente City Councilwoman Lori Donchak

Tustin Councilman Allan Bernstein

Tustin Councilman John Nielsen

Orange County Board of Education Trustee Ken Williams

Rancho Santiago Community College District Trustee Arianna Barrios

Rancho Santiago Community College District Trustee John Hanna

Rancho Santiago Community College District Trustee Phil Yarbrough

Irvine Unified School District Trustee Paul Bokota

Irvine Unified School District Trustee Lauren Brooks

Orange Unified School District Vice President Alexia Deligianni

Orange Unified School District Trustee Tim Surridge

Orange Unified School District Trustee Mark Wayland

East Orange County Water District Director Doug Davert

Orange County Transportation Authority Director Michael Hennessey

A Certified Public Accountant (CPA), Woolery earned his Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration and Accounting from Cal State Fullerton. He resides in Orange with his wife, Lisa, and their two young children.

I’m live at the RSCCD Board meeting to cover Item 6.6 on their agenda. For background on this item, see my post earlier tonight on this. Basically, the RSCCD Board was discussing in closed session efforts to impose a PLA on all work done from Measure Q, the $198,000,000 bond passed in 2012 in the western half of the district (Santa Ana and very small portions of Garden Grove and Anaheim). Item 6.6 forces the PLA to be discussed in open session.

(5:42 PM): Trustee Claudia Alvarez says RSCCD wants to follow the law. She says many districts negotiate PLAs in closed session. She says the reason to negotiate a PLA in closed session is for the district’s strategic advantage. She says there is no cover-up effort because they’ve brought Item 6.6 in open session.

(5:43 PM): Trustee John Hanna says these PLA negotiations should no longer be discussed substantively in closed session. Hanna says he agrees with Alvarez. He says the Chancellor should negotiate privately, so the RSCCD Board can examine the negotiation product in open session.

(5:46 PM): Trustee Larry Labrado wants the Board Executive Committee (not just the Board President) to be able to privately confer with the Chancellor on the PLA. The Executive Committee consists of 3 of the 7 trustees: the President, Vice President, and Secretary.

(5:47 PM): Alvarez says there’s nothing wrong with each trustee being updated by the Chancellor on the PLA negotiations.

(5:48 PM): Hanna wants Item 6.6 to be amended to have Board to “continue its practice of refraining” from discussing the PLA negotiations.

(5:54 PM): Board President Arianna Barrios says there are four conflicting opinions, including the Chancellor’s and Craig Alexander’s. She is concerned that RSCCD would lose in an Attorney General’s opinion, so that’s one of the reasons she agendized Item 6.6.

(5:56 PM): The Hanna Amendment is passed unanimously.

(5:57 PM): I note that neither Trustee Jose Solorio nor Nelida Yanez has uttered a word in the debate.

Solorio says he would like to be President. (I would note this would enable him to be RSCCD President during his candidacy for the hotly contested 34th Senate District race in 2014 against Orange County Supervisor Janet Nguyen.)

Labrado says he would like to be Vice President.

(6:05 PM): Ironically, RSCCD staff are now doing a presentation on projects that were funded by Measure E, which was the $337,000,000 bond passed in 2002 in all of RSCCD (Santa Ana, Orange, Villa Park, Anaheim Hills, and small portions of Garden Grove). The presentation noted numerous projects that were over budget and behind schedule. Measure E projects are already subject to a PLA. (The PLA discussion related to Item 6.6 from tonight’s meeting were involving Measure Q, the 2012 bond for $198,000,000 in western RSCCD: Santa Ana and small portions of Garden Grove and Anaheim.)

(6:15 PM): I’m done with this live blog. It’ll be interesting going forward in future meetings, with their pledge to not discuss PLA negotiations in private. We’ll be keeping a close eye on the developments with the PLA, which will mandate only unionized labor working on Measure Q projects. The other union demands will also be included in the PLA, but obviously those are still being negotiated; OC Political will reveal those as soon as we know what they are. RSCCD President-designate Solorio will likely have his hands full when the PLA terms go public.

The Rancho Santiago Community College District (RSCCD) Board of Trustees has been accused of violating the Brown Act by negotiating PLA terms in closed session. (For those unfamiliar, PLAs are Project Labor Agreements, which basically require union labor terms on the projects in question, including requiring unionized labor to be employed by private contractors who are hired to work on the project.)

In an apparent reaction to the letter, the RSCCD agenda for tonight’s meeting includes Item 6.6, which is entitled, “Discussion of Community and Student Workforce Project Agreement Negotiations with Los Angeles-Orange County Building and Construction Trades Council/Craft Unions/Carpenters Union” on the agenda. (“Community and Student Workforce Project Agreement Negotiations” is the RSCCD euphemism for “PLA negotiations”). The staff recommendation is: “It is recommended that the board formally agree to refrain from any discussion of negotiations on the Community and Student Workforce Project Agreement in closed session unless or until more conclusive information is provided to clarify the legality of such discussions in closed session per the Brown Act.” In other words, the RSCCD is no longer certain that its previous actions in discussing the PLA negotiations were legal.

OC Political has received emails from various groups on this issue pointing to Jose Solorio as the leader of this closed session PLA effort. The Associated Builders and Contractors had the most concise email on this issue, which was sent over yesterday:

Help Stop Jose Solorio From Illegally Hiding His $29 Million Taxpayer Give-Away To Special Interests

Help stop RSCCD Trustee Jose Solorio from illegally hiding his $29 million taxpayer give-away to special interests! It is being voted on TOMORROW, TUESDAY 11/12/2013 at 4pm.

It seems the Rancho Santiago Community College District (RSCCD) Board of Trustees has been violating California’s open meeting laws (also known as “The Brown Act”) by negotiating a discriminatory union agreement on their nearly $200 million dollar Measure Q bond passed by voters in November 2012. No mention of this wasteful special interest deal was of course ever made when selling this to the citizens – and now the public is being purposefully kept out of the debate.
If that isn’t bad enough, they might vote tomorrow night to CONTINUE ILLEGALLY HIDING THIS FROM THE PUBLIC!

The PLA is Item 6.6 on the agenda and the last two pages of the document include an error-riddled memo from the Chancellor trying to pretend that “It is a common practice for…public agencies to discuss PLA negotiations in closed session.”

We need you to do the following:
Attend the meeting tomorrow. TUESDAY November 12th at 4:00pm at the RSCCD District Offices located at 2323 North Broadway, Board Room #107 Santa Ana, CA 92706. We need you to bring management, workers, and apprentices and tell the RSCCD Trustees to bring this deal out into the light of day!

These discriminatory union deals are traditionally called Project Labor Agreements or PLA’s, but in another effort to disguise this waste from the public, RSCCD went so far as to call the agreement a “Community and Student Workforce Project Agreement.” Join us tomorrow night and help stop this ongoing deception!

If it is such a good idea to waste $29 million dollars of our teachers and students education dollars just to over-pay for construction, then why is Jose Solorio trying to cover this deal up?

I was working on a database of the part affiliation of all Orange County local elected officials. Finally, I have completed the project with all of the special districts and county seats being added. I also fixed some errors in the previous versions (here, here, and here) and have combined the database into one post.

We have added a button on the menu bar for our readers to always be able to access this database and use it for whatever research/political needs that they may have. Due to the length of th epost you are going to have to click the below link to read the rest of the post.

As promised, I have now put together a database for the School Board members and their party affiliation based on who will be serving post election. Based on results in a couple of races being close, this list may change before it goes up on the website permanently.

If anybody reading this finds an error (like the situation where I thought Wendy Leece ran unopposed for NMUSD) please let me know so I can fix it.